Shadows & Dreams (Kate Kane: Paranormal Investigator #2) by Alexis Hall

From the blurb:

Second rule in this line of business: be careful who you kill.

My name’s Kate Kane. And right now, I don’t know which is more dangerous: my job, or my girlfriend. My job makes me the go-to girl for every supernatural mystery in London. My girlfriend’s an eight-hundred-year-old vampire prince. Honestly, I think it’s probably a tie.

A few weeks ago, I was hired for a simple missing person case. Next thing I know, I’m being arrested for murder, a vampire army is tearing up London, and even my dreams are out to get me. Something ancient, evil, and scary as hell is on the loose and looking for payback. The vampires are in chaos, the werewolves are culling everything, and the Witch Queen can’t protect everyone.

Which means it’s down to me. And all I’ve got to hold back the shadows is a stiff drink, a quirky sidekick, my creepy ex-boyfriend, and the woman who left me for a tech startup. It’s going to be another interesting day.

Review:

Be prepared to be plunged back into the chaotic world of Kate Kane.  

Hall is in perfect form with this second instalment of Kate Kane: Paranormal Investigator. Just like the first novel, the cast of characters is huge, but don't let that put you off - Hall wants you to understand just how big, magical, and scary his version of London is.

The most perfect thing about this novel (and there are many perfect things) is Hall's wit.  From the prologue I was cackling like a witch on helium. It was so bad (i.e. good), my partner forbade me from reading it in bed. No big deal. I just finished reading it while they were at work. Relationship skills, I has them.

This time I fell even more in love with Kate than I had before. It's hard not to love a heroine whose catch-cry is "Well, fuck." She's self-deprecating, not a morning person and hates bananas. Her noir-esque style of narration combined with a gen y speech characteristics including the clause structure "because noun" (e.g. "because reasons") meant that I felt a strong affinity and connection with Kate and her voice.

In this book I also felt more convinced by her relationship with the vampire prince, Julian. The first novel it was a little unclear what she saw in Julian other than sex-goddess. Not that that's a bad thing.

The digs at Twilight are super obvious and make for some irreverent intertextual goodness.

Hall's second instalment of Kate Kane is uproariously funny. 

Best consumed with something hard... like whiskey. Trust me, Kate would approve.

Title: Shadows & Dreams (Kate Kane: Paranormal Investigator #2)
Author: Alexis Hall
Genre: Paranormal/Romance
Publisher: Ripdtide Publishing
Publishing Date: June 2014
Type: f/f